Volume 2
First-[second] report of the Royal Sanitary Commission.
- Great Britain. Royal Sanitary Commission
- Date:
- 1869-1874
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: First-[second] report of the Royal Sanitary Commission. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
208/418 (page 200)
![J. Liddle, Esq. 12,272. {Chairman.) Have you any other sugges- tions to make connected with buildings ?—That clause 23. une 1870. tnine would meet almost everything. I should say that no house should be allowed to be built unless provided Avith a suitable privy or watercloset within the curtilage of the house. I may say in passing that the ])resent Building Act does not provide for any- thing of the kind. I hold that no house is fit for human habitation unless it is provided with a suitable privy or watercloset. 12.273. You think even the smallest house should have a privy ?—Yes. 12.274. {Mr. Russell Gurney.) Within the cur- tilage ?—Within the garden walls or the walls of the house ; by curtilage I mean within the walls of the house or of the garden. Every room in every house should be at least eight feet high. Every house should be provided with a parapet wall so as to pro- tect the public from the danger of a falling slate, tile, or mass of snow. That provision existed I believe in the former Building Act, but unfortunately it was omitted in the present Act. Then I Avould suggest that before any house be permitted to' be occupied, the road and footways should be paved and the sur- face drainage properly provided for. All these are matters which have really come under my own obser- vation. I am not speaking from hearsay or the evidence of others. At Bow the houses are built iu a very disgraceful manner ; the drainage is not at- tended to in the first instance. In course of time the drainage may be improved, but it was not in a pi'oper state when the houses were built. I would suggest that before any house is built, plans of the drainage and of all the sanitary arrangements of such house should be submitted for approval to the local board. That during the progress of the building of any house, the surveyor to the local board should be required to inspect the foundation thereof, and if the surveyor should be of opinion that the materials which were being used for such foundation were not proper for the purpose, he should report the same to the board, Avho should have power to prevent the use of such improper materials. That the walls and foundation of every house should be so constructed as to prevent the rise of damp. The foundation should be laid on concrete. That every house should have at the rear an open space of sufficient size for the thorough venti- lation not only of every room but of the staircase and passages. That houses should not on any account be allowed to be built back to back ; there should be a thorough ventilation of every house. That the back yards of all houses let out in tenements, now iu exis- tence, should not be built upon, unless with the sanction of the local board, and that the space of 100 square feet at the rear should on no account be infringed on. That old buildings, such as warehouses, stables, &c. ahould not be converted into dwelling-houses, unless the plans for the proposed alterations have been sub- mitted to the local board, and approved of. That the basement rooms of every house shall be built in conformity with the provisions laid down in the Building Act as to the occupation of such rooms as dwellings. Inhabited rooms should not be lighted by means of a sky-light. This plan of lighting appears to be sanctioned by the new Building Bill, that is to say, they are to be ventilated from the outside, that may mean a sky-light. There you have a case in which the Building Act may be evaded at once; it is meant, I suppose, by a window, but there are no such words inserted. In order that every street should have an adequate supply of sun-light which is so essential to health, the buildings on either side Otl the street should not be permitted to exceed in height the width of the street. 12.275. {Cliairman.) Do you propose that those should be all matters of general legislation or that they should be dealt with by byelaws ?—I thoroughly object*to any byelaws. 12.276. So that in any consolidated Local Govern- ment Act you Avould have all those pi'ovisions intro- duced ?—Yes, I would leave nothing to the local boards to determine for themselves, as uniformity Avould not be thereby secured. Another point to Avhich I Avas going to refer to is this : the ventilation of sewers by rain-Avater pipes is, I think, highly ob- jectionable, and I also think would be poisonous—if I may use so strong a Avoi'd—because the emanations from the sewers as at present constructed would pervade the houses by means of such pipes. It Avould have been much cheaper and better if the whole of the seAvers in London, and probably my observation may apply to large towns as Avell, if, when a new outfall was provided, the sewers had been reconstructed. At present many of them are almost on the level, and they become in fact simply cesspools, and emanations escape from them through the ventilating openings, but such openings are neces- sary in order to enable the men to go into the sewers with safety. 12.277. {3Ir. Shaiv.) As to the general question of the A^entilation of sewers, have you any pian to recommend for their ventilation ?—No, I have not. 12.278. As regards the power of entry into houses in order to ascertain Avhether nuisances exist, is it your opinion that the present powers of entry are sufficient ?—We have not experienced any practical difficulty ourselves, but if persons chose to object to it, we should have to get an order from the magistrate, and a certain number of hours' notice must be given before we could enter; and, though the nuisance existed one day, that nuisance might be removed at the time of our visit, but it might recur two or three days after. What we Avant is, where we have reason to suspect the existence of a nuisance, that we should have the poAver of entry at any reasonable time. 12.279. What legislative provision Avould you sug- gest in order to give you such a power ?—If the sani- tary officers believed, either from their own observa- tion or from information derived from others, that a nuisance existed on certain premises, they should have the poAver of entry to examine the state of things. 12.280. That is to say, if a party refused you entry, that you should go before a magistrate, and upon your shoAving that you had reasonable cause to demand that entry, the party should be liable to be fined for having refused you ?—Yes; or, in the other case, if Ave got an order from the magistrate to enter, that that order ought to extend for f;ome considerable time, say for a fortnight, and that it should not only apply to the particular day on Avhich the order Avas issued. 12.281. Do you believe that there are cases of such urgency that you require to be able to enter' and inspect at once without the delay Avhich is necessarily involved in going before a magistrate ?—There are such cases. I may mention that, in our disti'ict, Ave have found dead bodies in an undertaker's house, occasioning a nuisance ; also stoppped privies and drains. Those Avould be cases of emergency, and I think Ave ought to have the poAver of entry at all times Avhere Ave had reason to suspect the existence of any nuisance. 12.282. Would you desire to have the right not only to go in upon information previously I'eceived, but to inspect house after house in a street in order to see for yourselves Avhether there is or is not any nuisance ? •—Yes, we do that practically. EA'eiy house in our dis- trict has been systematically visited. When Ave first commenced operations in Whitechapel, every house, whether inhabited by rich or poor, was examined either by the inspector or by myself, and Ave keep up that system now in the poorer class of houses, 12.283. And you do not find that there is any ob- jection on the part of the inhabitants of those houses to admit the inspectors ?—Not the slightest. 12.284. { Chairman.) How frequently is that visi- tation made ?—Not so often as I should like it to be done, because we have not a sufficient staff for the purpose. I apprehend that it is not made more than once in 12 months, because there are 5,000 houses in Whitechapel which require constant visitation, and if you ask me hoAV many minutes it Avould take to examine a house, I find from a report I have made](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21366081_0002_0208.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
